Cirrus@Austlit

'The master of creeping unease and unrelenting consequences is back.

'The vain and the cruel, the indifferent and the excessive, across ten tales of cut corners and grubby compromise, Bob Franklin turns his fairground mirror on contemporary Australia, with a cast of characters navigating modern life and trying to get by, get on and get away with whatever they can, whatever the cost.

'A gaggle of comedians exchange escalating jokes about a needy fan. A small business owner delights in making top dollar off uncomprehending customers. A widower finds solace in a new dog that gives focus and purpose to his rage and grief. In 60s London a rock band rise and rise, aided by occult forces from another place. After dinner stories in an elite gentleman’s club turn to impossible murder and skullduggery in an Australian mining company.

'Gleefully macabre, drily menacing, chillingly acute, Franklin spares nobody.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'When Ezra Banks (11, aspiring entrepreneur), meets Maudie Miller (10, aspiring Columbo), he sees an opportunity to fill an obvious gap in the market: a detective agency run by children. Maudie and Ezra are joined by two other kids from grade five, Ava and Kyle. Ava brings the social skills and Kyle brings the athletic prowess. Each episode solves a mystery; clues are littered throughout, and the race is on to see if the audience can crack the case before Maudie.'

Source: Screen Australia.

'Jean and her boyfriend travel to Nepal on a volunteering holiday, a Himalayan adventure and a chance to find themselves. But instead Jean finds herself tumbling into a vivid and unexplained psychosis.

'In traditional Nepalese game Moving Tigers, tigers hunt goats while the goats choke the tigers’ moves. Jean can’t work out if she’s being hunted or choked, or who is friend or foe. The cracks in her personality rupture, the chinks in her relationship become gaping holes, and Jean falls into the jaws of a catastrophe. ' (Publication summary)

'Dip into the world of Bob Franklin's fiction at your own risk. The calm surface belies a swift undertow and snags galore. These are not horror stories in the traditional sense; they are more unsettling than that.

Under Stones are uneasy tales, set in familiar surrounds. They are journeys into the human psyche and powerful critiques of contemporary Australian society. Bob Franklin pokes and prods at human fears and foibles, revealing with forensic glee truths that you might prefer were, well, left under stones.' (From the publisher's website.)

A series of one-off stories, performed by the same ensemble cast members.

For a list of episodes, see Film Details.